


talk to me by the fire side, keep the cold at bay

by AimlessCat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 01:31:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12180297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AimlessCat/pseuds/AimlessCat
Summary: Tony lets go easily enough when darkness overtakes his vision in the cold Siberian bunker.He opens them to a cave, with a battery powered magnet in his chest.





	talk to me by the fire side, keep the cold at bay

Siberia is cold, bitterly so. The suit is dead, broken arc reactor sparking in that dangerous way tech always does when it’s trying to cling to a life that’s fading quick. Trying to cling to something that will implode and kill anyone in its way if it’s forced to try and work when it’s shattered, broken.

Tony Stark almost finds it fitting, as he lays uselessly against the cold concrete walls of the bunker. Of course, he could try to do something. He could start to get the suit off, cut off any residual power so the broken arc doesn’t blow, maybe get his com unit going again so FRIDAY’s voice can piece the silence around him. But he finds that just breathing alone painfully hard for him at the moment, and now that the adrenaline has worn off the thought of all the moving he would have to do just…..doesn’t seem worth it. 

It’s getting dark now, what little light still remains glinting off the scuffed metal of his father’s shield. Glinting off the silver metal of an arm. The sparks from the arc reactor cause little bursts of light that illuminate the busted chest piece of the armor.

It’s cold in Siberia, but cold can numb things, and Tony welcomes the feeling. 

 

Tony Stark lays alone in an abandoned HYDRA base, a potential bomb on his chest, threatening to go boom if he plays with it and makes a mistake in an attempt to defuse it. And Tony Stark has made so many mistakes.

 

Tony Stark does think it’s fitting now, this bomb were his heart use to be, the darkness and cold creeping in on him. 

A fitting end for the once renowned Merchant of Death.

 

He doesn’t have the strength in him anymore, any tears he had shed for his mother and father in the solitude of the base have long left frozen streaks on his face. Tony Stark is done fighting. He wants to rest. He wants to hear his baby boy, his JARVIS. He wants to introduce J to Edwin Jarvis, wants to see the two converse, same voice or not, and see Edwin Jarvis’s proud smile aimed at him one more time. He wants to see Ana at Jarvis’s side.

He wants Aunt Peggy. He wants his father, as much as the thought would have once revolted him.

Most of all, Tony wants his mother. 

As darkness threatens the edges of his vision, he thinks perhaps he can. 

 

In a dark base in the middle of Siberia, with the light around him reduced to occasional flickers from the reactor, Tony Stark closes his eyes.

 

======================================================================

 

 

Tony comes too slowly, the sounds and smells of a softly crackling wood fire filling his senses. He blinks away the darkness, neck twisting to peer groggily around him. His chest feels strange, and he can feel his hand reach for the place the reactor once was as he looks around.

He knows this place. Knows these cave walls, knows the smell of fire, dirt, rocks, and blood that coats the insides of his nose as if he had never smelled anything else in his life. 

Shakily, his hands feel bandages on his chest, can feel the metal and wires tucked underneath all the layers. He can see a car battery on a table, wires reaching for him ominously. On his other side he can see a metal cup of what he knows is water.

And there, further in the room, is a man carefully shaving in a makeshift mirror.

The breath catches in his throat, chokes him with panic. The man by the mirror seems to catch his eyes in the reflection, and sets the tools he had been using down. The man turns to him, soft and tired smile on his lips.

“Hello again Stark.” The man says the words pleasantly, with fondness that shoots Tony through to his core.

“Yinsen?”

=======================================================================

Tony struggles to stand, looking around at the Afghanistan cave with frantic eyes. 

“Ahah,” Yinsen calls, hurrying over with hands that steady him. Tony flinches when Yinsen’s hands touch him, but Yinsen makes no move to harm him, only settle him back down on the cot. Yinsen crouches as he does this, always keeping his eyes level with Tony’s, never breaking contact with Tony’s gaze.

“Yinsen?” Tony can’t help the way his words seem to sound like a sob. “What’s going on?” 

“Well my friend, it seems once again you face death door. A bad habit to make you know.” Yinsen looks away long enough to pull a stool Tony hadn’t noticed over, so he can properly sit in front of Tony’s cot.

Tony can’t find any words to say, so he just stares, and if his lips are quivering a bit, well, sue him. 

Yinsen doesn’t seem to care tho, just pushes forward as he carefully removes the bandages on Tony’s chest to reveal the electromagnetic underneath. His fingers are gentle, so so gentle that Tony thinks he might be crying now.

Yinsen gives the magnet one final pat, and then grasps Tony’s shoulder lightly for a comforting little shake. He turns away, moving to get something. 

“Come, you can tell me what I’ve missed over some food, Stark.”

“What? Yinsen...what..” Tony’s voice trails off, lost.

Yinsen just keeps smiling, slowly starting to prepare beans over the fire. “We have some catching up to do Stark, but don’t worry, we have plenty of time. No one to rush us this time around.”

 

Tony, for some god forbidden reason, actually opens his mouth to speak.

========================================================================

Tony starts at the beginning with Stane, he doesn’t know why, but he feels like it’s only right.

“If I hadn’t been so blind, maybe I could have stopped him before it all really started.”

“But you still stopped him, yes?”

“....Yeah, I did.”

From there words flow like water from his lips. Everything he had done since leaving Yinsen and the cave behind for a second chance at life. Vanko. The invasion, the Avengers. Killian. The SHIELD dump. Ultron.

Yinsen remains mostly quiet, humming in thought on occasion as Tony talks. At the end of each major part of Tony’s stories, Yinsen asks only one question, again and again.

“But you did succeed, yes?”

And each time, Tony is forced to answer with a simple, “Yes.”

 

When Tony speaks about the Accords, and Rogers and Siberia, he knows that this time he will have to answer no, he did not succeed. 

Yinsen changes the question on him.

“But you were doing the right thing, yes?”

Tony falters. “I-” He looks at the ground, scuffing the loose dirt on the ground with his shoe. 

“Yes, I was.” 

Yinsen hums, seemingly content. He stands, looking over at Tony’s slouched and tired form fondly. “I think it’s time now to get that out of your chest Stark. Don’t you agree?”

Tony looks down at the dingy, half-hazard electromagnet in his chest, only to find a shattered, sparking Arc Reactor in it’s place.

“Last time,” Yinsen starts, “that we had to replace the magnet in your chest, you revolutionized the world with the results. I think we can do that again.” He offers his hand, and Tony takes it. Yinsen feels warm to the touch, and Tony feels like he’s suddenly several degrees warmer himself.

======================================================================

Together Tony and Yinsen collect little scraps of metal from the bombs around the cave, but Tony knows this time that it’s not palladium he collects. 

Tony is preparing to smelt the metal they have collected, when he starts to speak again.

“I don’t know if I want to wake up, Yinsen. I’m tired.”

“I know Stark. When we are done, you can choose to leave this cave alive, or you could choose to come with me. My family would love to meet you.” It’s said casually, like Yinsen is telling him to come over for dinner, not letting him know he can die now, if he so wishes.

“But,” he continues, “I think you will find we’re patient on the other side. We can wait, you don’t have to rush.” 

They keep working.

 

Yinsen pours the molten metal into the cast they’ve, and Tony watches it flow from the little cup, the liquid metal glowing as pure and blue as the arc reactor had once been.

 

Tony is hammering, he can’t be sure what exactly he’s making, but he works slowly and methodically as he pounds out whatever shape he needs the metal to take on the anvil. 

“Will you be content, leaving things as they are, Stark?” Yinsen asks, watching from the sidelines as Tony works.

“I might make things worse if I go back.” Tony says instead.

“Ah, but things will always get worse before they get better. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to leave something broken that you can fix, my friend.” Tony swears that Yinsen’s eyes twinkle.

Tony keeps hammering.

Yinsin brings him a bucket of water, setting it next to the anvil for Tony’s use.

He drops the still hot metal into the water, unsure of the shape still but knowing that it was done. As the metal hits the water, the surface ripples and Tony finds himself watching his own memories.

The good memories.

Pepper. Happy. Rhodey. 

Together the two men watch past visions of Tony’s life, each new memory a ripple in the water.

“What do you want Tony Stark? If you allowed yourself to be a selfish man, what do you want?” 

Tony watches the memories in the bucket, thinking.

“I want the world safe. Safe enough for me to lay back and do nothing but make things in my lab. I want my friends, back. I want Pep to roll her eyes at me. I want Rhodey to walk with me everywhere and nowhere. I want to go boxing with Happy.” Words flow from his lips before he can stop them.  
“I want a family again. A real one. I want...I think I want kids. My own kids, so I can tell them all about their Grandma and Grandpa. I want to die day knowing I left the world better. I want my legacy to be more than machines and weapons and death. I want my legacy to be life, and if I die here and now, it wont.”

Yinsen smiles, and with his bare hands reaches into the bucket of water, pulling something out.

It’s a heart, beating strongly, lines of Arc Reactor blue running over it like veins. It is, in a word, beautiful.

Yinsen comes over to him, and with an ease that shouldn’t be possible, he removes the broken arc from Tony’s chest, leaving a simple hole behind.

“You have a good heart, Tony Stark. Hearts are fragile, and easily broken. But, I think you will find they are at the same time resilient, and with a little work and time, they can be repaired.” Yinsen takes Tony’s hands, and places the heart into them. It’s warm, life pulsing in every beat.

“It will be harder ofcourse,” he says, stepping away so Tony is holding the heart by himself. “To repair a heart back in the real world.”

Tony nods silently. Carefully, he pushes the heart into the hole on his chest. Between the blink of an eye, his chest goes from having a dark hole, to being whole again, unscarred skin running across his chest like nothing had ever been there in the first place. He hums in thought, hands running over his own chest in mild wonder.

Yinsen reaches a hand out to pat Tony’s shoulder, and they move towards the only door in their cave.

When Yinsen pushes it open, Tony can see himself lying in the Siberian bunker. Only this time, he can see Vision resting his forehead against Tony’s, holding him as other people rush around, preparing to evac him to what he assumes will be a medical center.

Yinsen steps back, and allows Tony to make his choice. 

 

Tony Stark steps through the door from the cave into the cold, and darkness overtakes him.

Faintly, he can hear Vision telling him he will be alright. Tony thinks he might even believe him now.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been floating around in my head lately, and someone else probably could have made this a thousand times better than I have. But I couldn't just leave it to gnaw at me, so enjoy this little ficlet.


End file.
